‘My God! Is this what I’m reduced to!’ she said aloud as she sat on her suitcase and listened to her daughter screaming to be fed. Fear gripped her and she started to shake. She could be here for years and years, she thought wildly. She’d have to go crawling on her hands and knees to Lydia. This enormous wilderness scared her. She’d noticed two young girls of about fourteen draped on the stairway, obviously spaced out on something. Gently she bared her breast for Lynn and fed her baby, jumping nervously at every sound.
They had told her in the hostel that she could stay for a few days longer until she got some furniture together, and later, as she stood waiting for one of the graffitied lifts to bring her down to ground level she felt as though the hostel was arcadian compared to Ballymun.
‘Lift’s broken, Missus. D’ya wan a hand?’ a gruff voice said beside her and she turned to see two teenage boys observing her. Cold fingers of terror gripped her insides. She had heard about getting mugged. Maybe these were two gurriers. Devlin almost fainted as the pair of them lifted the buggy with Lynn in it and began to march down interminable flights of stairs.
‘Yer new, Missus, aren’t yer?’ the gruff one with the spiky hairstyle and purple streaks was saying over his shoulder.
‘Yes that’s right,’ Devlin agreed faintly.
‘Me and Rog live next door to ya. Me ma’ll be delighted to have someone new beside us. We had squatters an all, they were awful druggies too!’
‘Oh!’ responded Devlin inadequately, as they reached the exit. They gently lowered the gurgling baby who had thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
‘See ya Missus,’ they said cheerfully as they strolled off to the shops.
‘Thanks very much,’ Devlin shouted after them, belatedly remembering her manners. They waved again and as she pushed the buggy towards the bus stop she marvelled at how prejudiced she had been, immediately suspecting them of intending to rob her just because they were tough-looking young lads and she was in Ballymun. She felt ashamed and was to feel ashamed many times in the future as one by one her narrow social prejudices were demolished and she learned while living there that there is good and bad everywhere. For the first time in her life Devlin realized that it wasn’t where you lived and what you worked at that mattered. It was the kind of person you were that was important.
Standing in the bus queue with other young mothers and their babies she thought longingly about her Ford Fiesta that she had taken so much for granted. How free she had been then. Bus queues had been for others. Now she was one of those people she had unconsciously looked down her nose at. Now she was also a person dependent on welfare the same as many others. What a turn her life had taken. Caroline had done much better for herself. Even Maggie with her twins had someone to cherish and take care of her. Wait until she told them where she was living! God, wouldn’t they pity her. She looked at her blue-eyed daughter grinning happily at her and felt an awful fear in the pit of her stomach. Would she be able to take care of her and provide for her? How would she manage to give her the childhood that Devlin had taken so unquestioningly for granted, the music lessons, the horse riding, the school trips to the Continent? ‘I can’t even afford to buy a bed,’ she muttered in despair.
Her pride at rock bottom, she rang Caroline and asked her to meet her the following day. As they sat sipping their coffee, she looked at her friend straight in the eye and said quietly, ‘Caro, I’m in a bad way for money and you are the only person I could bring myself to ask.’ Swallowing hard she continued, ‘I’ve got to buy a bed and some cups and plates and something to cook on. Could you lend me some money? I swear I’ll pay you back.’ Lowering her head, she whispered, ‘Oh God, Caroline, look what I’m reduced to! Please don’t tell Richard.’
Wordlessly Caroline opened her expensive Gucci bag, took out her cheque book and a slim gold pen and swiftly wrote out a cheque. Passing it over to Devlin she said firmly, ‘Take this, Dev, it’s my own. Money I saved from when I was working. No-one except the two of us will ever know about it and if it takes you until you are fifty to pay me back I don’t care,’ she said defiantly.
Devlin’s eyes widened as she saw the amount of the cheque. ‘Five hundred! Caroline, I can’t!’ she said, almost in tears at her friends generosity.
‘You can and you will!’ Caroline retorted. ‘You were always there when I needed you. Please let me do the same for you.’ She looked at Devlin, her lovely brown eyes earnest. ‘Please Dev, let me do this. Nobody has ever needed me before, let me help you pick yourself up out of this mess. Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got to think of your future and Lynn’s.’ She chucked the baby under the chin. ‘I’m not going to let you bury yourself for ever out in Ballymun, but while you are there you might as well have the bare necessities.’ She grinned. ‘Now finish your coffee and let’s go shopping and then I want you to give me your new address. I have a surprise for you tomorrow.’
Devlin sat back open-mouthed. Caroline’s attitude astounded her. She was right: she had been giving in to self pity, feeling that she had a lot to be sorry for. But Caroline was having none of it, and she sounded so determined! Usually it was Devlin who led and Caroline followed. Much to her surprise she found herself saying meekly, ‘Yes, Caroline’ as she followed her friend out of the café. They headed to a discount store and again Devlin watched in amazement as the other girl swiftly loaded up a trolley with cups, plates, tea towels, knives, forks, and other household wares.
‘I know these are cheap and not great quality but they will do until you are in better financial circumstances,’ Caroline was saying, in a brisk matter-of-fact tone.
‘Crikey, Caroline,’ Devlin said three hours later when a small divan, a second-hand sofa and a plain kitchen table had been purchased and they were sitting over another cup of coffee. ‘You’ve changed so much!’
Caroline smiled at her. ‘Maybe I have,’ she agreed wryly. ‘But so have you.’ When they parted, Caroline to rendezvous with Richard, Devlin to spend her last night in the hostel, they hugged warmly. ‘Don’t forget now, Devlin. Chin up and think positive.’
‘OK,’ Devlin promised. How their roles had been reversed. ‘Thanks Caroline, I’ll never forget what you did for me.’
‘And I haven’t forgotten what you did for me either. Now bring that child home and put her to bed and then get your thinking cap on. See you tomorrow with my surprise.’
The following morning Devlin was up at the crack of dawn. She packed the rest of her belongings in the hostel and stripped her bed, leaving the clothes neatly folded in a pile. The other girls wished her well and she was warmed by their sincerity. After all they were all in the same boat. Extravagantly she ordered a taxi, knowing it was the last time she would be able to indulge in such a luxury and as it sped towards the northside suburb she decided yet again to close the door on one phase of her life and begin another.
Making a pact with herself not to look back and think of the past, she turned her thoughts to the future. Caroline was right: she was not going to turn into a whimpering whingeing welfare dependent. Lynn was going to have her music and horse riding lessons just as she had. She sat up straight in the back of the taxi, her jaw set and determined.
The sun was shining, the thick damp grey fog of her previous visit had evaporated and in the distance she could see the sharp outline of the seven high rise towers of the flats. They did not seem so bad when the sun was shining: they even had their own stark attractiveness, she thought. To her left she noticed a single storey redbrick building surrounded by trees and shrubs and a rich lawn, a green oasis in the concrete jungle. Noticing some adults and children leaving the building with books under their arms she mentally tucked the information at the back of her mind. The library would come in handy until she could afford a television and at least it was free, she thought briskly. To think that she, Devlin Delaney, belle of many a ball, was reduced to going to a library for entertainment! Impatiently she banished the thought. She had vowed not to
look back but as the taxi drew to a halt outside her tower block and she saw the litter-filled graffiti-decorated entrance she knew it would be hard going.
Nineteen
Two hours later, as Devlin determinedly scrubbed out her tiny kitchen, there was a knock on the door. Expecting it to be the furniture, she dried her hands, tucked a limp strand of blonde hair behind her ear and didn’t bother to remove her apron. She opened the solid wooden door and her mouth formed an ‘O’ of surprise as she discovered a grinning Maggie, rubber gloves already on, and a similarly rubber-gloved Caroline beside her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were in Dublin? I’ll murder you,’ Maggie exclaimed.
‘We’ve come to help you settle in, Dev,’ Caroline explained. Indicating a large box at her feet she said cheerfully, ‘there’s another one in Maggie’s car but don’t ask me to get it yet; I couldn’t face those stairs for a while!’ Devlin stood almost speechless as a tide of emotion surged through her. Here were her two best friends, both affluent married women and here she was an unmarried mother, living in poverty, looking a mess, with a hole in her jeans.
Oh God, what must they think of her. She couldn’t bear the thought of their pity. Her thoughts were mirrored in her eyes and Maggie, instantly aware of what was going through the younger woman’s mind, put her arms around her and said gently, ‘Stop it, Dev, it’s us! Your best buddies! Don’t feel defensive with us, for heaven’s sake! All for one and one for all. Remember?’ Devlin smiled at their old catchphrase. Maggie was right, she was far too defensive. Look at the way she had felt about Jeraldine. Really! It was time she got her act together.
‘Come on Dev,’ Caroline urged, waving a litre bottle of duty-free wine. ‘Get the glasses and let’s get pissed for old time’s sake!’ Not knowing whether to laugh or cry and on the verge of both, Devlin stood back and let them in. Maggie instantly made for Lynn’s cot and Devlin noted in surprise that her friend had put on some weight and that the radiant joie de vivre that had been so characteristic of her seemed somewhat diminished. Marriage and motherhood had certainly taken their toll of the effervescent Maggs.
Several mugs of wine later and they were all laughing as they scrubbed out the flat. The furniture had been delivered in the meantime and the place had lost its cold bare unlived-in look and was beginning to have a more homely aura. Maggie had brought a chicken casserole and after they had hung up a pair of old but clean curtains that she had found somewhere, they heated it up and settled down to eat, ravenously hungry after their exertions. It was a happy meal, one of many they were to have in the ten months Devlin was to spend in Ballymun. Her friends’ support and encouragement got Devlin through those hardship-filled months during which she discovered resources within herself that made her battle on, determined to make a life for herself and her child.
Her other source of comfort and support was Mollie O’Brien, mother of four, and her husband Eddie who were her next-door neighbours. A warm motherly Dublin woman, Mollie had come calling with a freshly baked apple tart the first week Devlin was in the flat. ‘Howya luv, me name is Mollie, I hope yer settlin. I brought ya a tart just te introduce meself like,’ were her first words to the astonished Devlin.
‘Oh! Oh that’s very kind of you. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?’ Devlin responded, delighted by the other woman’s warmth and neighbourliness.
‘Oh I’d only love a cuppa cha. Dere’s nuttin like eh,’ Mollie beamed, stepping into the flat. ‘Janey! Aren’t ye after doin a grand job on the place all the same. That other crowd a gurriers left it like a feckin pigsty,’ she exclaimed, casting an experienced eye around the place. ‘Now luv if dere’s ever anything ya need don’t be shy about knocking on me door. Right?’
‘Right,’ agreed Devlin happily. Maybe she wasn’t going to be too lonely after all.
With four grown sons, including teenagers Roger and Rayo, the pair who had helped Devlin with the buggy on her first visit to the flat, Mollie obviously missed not having a daughter and in no time Devlin and Lynn were taken under her motherly wing. Mollie’s flat was immaculate and beautifully decorated and the balcony, a south facing suntrap painted white, was where Devlin spent many a happy afternoon listening to Mollie tell stories of life in the Liberties, where she had been reared. In turn Devlin told her about her life, her pregnancy, and her nonexistent relationship with her mother. It was so easy to talk to Mollie, the down-to-earth Dublin woman was always giving her helpful hints about Lynn, and knowing she was next door and so dependable was an enormous help to the younger girl.
Mollie explained that she and her husband were on the waiting list for one of the new houses being built in the Liberties. ‘But I’ll miss Ballymun all de same,’ she sighed. ‘Dere’s some awful nice people here. Bernie now, ye met her, she lives just below ye. Well, ye couldn’t meet a nicer neighbour. She’d give ye the shirt off her back.’
Devlin smiled. She had indeed met Bernie a few days after moving in. A good-natured cheerful woman, Bernie knew anything and everything about living in Ballymun. When Devlin wanted to find out about getting a leaking pipe fixed, Bernie told her who to contact. She personally brought her to the Health Centre when Devlin enquired of its whereabouts and sat with her, introducing her to other mothers until Lynn and Devlin were called into the doctor.
‘My Margaret will babysit for ya if ye need her,’ Bernie assured her as they walked back to their block, and she sent her young son up every day to see if Devlin needed any messages from the shops. It was an eye-opener to Devlin the way the women of the flats supported each other. So different from the self-contained anonymity of the exclusive suburb she had grown up in. If it hadn’t been for Mollie and Bernie, Devlin knew she would never have stuck it out. No matter how down she was, just hearing Bernie’s infectious guffaw would lift her spirits.
‘You’d make a bleedin fortune hauntin houses!’ Mollie told Bernie one day as the other woman laughed heartily in her distinctive fashion at the sight of a local garda chasing after his cap that had been caught by a gust of wind. Devlin burst into giggles. Mollie’s caustic Dublin wit was a source of constant amusement to her. Eddie, Mollie’s husband, was a carpenter by trade, a tall, quiet, unassuming man, who would knock on her door now and again with shelves, and presses he ‘just happened to have lying around’ and would she be ‘bothered’ with them. Within weeks of Devlin getting to know them, Lynn was presented with her very own hand crafted cot and Devlin marvelled at her neighbours’ kindness.
Despite their outwardly tough image Rog and Rayo were good lads and would often call and keep her up to date with all the gossip on their block, while playing with the delighted Lynn. ‘Bridie upstairs is preggers again, worse luck! Betcha we’ll hear a few barneys on the landing, it’s always the bleedin same when she has a bun in the oven,’ Rayo informed her gloomily one day.
Devlin had encountered Bridie several times, a small fat hard-faced woman with brassy blond hair who seemed to be in her late thirties. On several occasions she had made audible remarks about whores and sluts getting money from the state which by rights should be given to her legitimate children and not to fatherless bastards.
‘Thank God I’m a good Catholic mother, not like some young wans around here!’ she said another day to nobody in particular as Mollie and Devlin stood waiting for the lift. Devlin blushed, and Mollie bristled, the light of battle flashing in her eyes.
‘Feck off outa that you, ya cheeky scrubber ya an don’t be annoyin the neighbours. It ’id match ya better if ya practised bein’ a Catholic steda preachin about it.’
Bridie gave a shriek of outrage. ‘Jaysus! De nerve a you talkin’ ta me like dat! Youse think yer the bees knees don’tcha with yer mahogany shelves an all. Boastin an braggin about that gurrier o’ yours out in the Levenland!’
Mollie’s oldest son Jimmy was a soldier and serving with the UN in Lebanon. He was his mother’s pride and joy. ‘It’s the Lebanon ye ignorant biddy an yer only jealous, Bridie, yer always the same, c
ausin trouble in the block. G’wan out o’ that and don’t be bothrin dacent people.’
‘I’ll get my Les down after youse, ye hussey ye!’ roared Bridie furiously.
‘Ah Janey! I’m all a tremble!’ Mollie retorted drily, marching into the lift and leaving the other woman arms akimbo, speechless.
Devlin, slightly horrified at the exchange, had paled.
‘Wouldja look at ya, you’ve dripped!’ Mollie exclaimed in dismay. ‘Don’t mind her luv, I think she’s a bit unhinged myself. An as for dat husband o’ hers . . . ’ she continued grimly. ‘He’s a right little bastard! Dere’s a pair of ’em in it. Tinkers the two of ’em! This is her seventh and she always takes it out on the neighbours God preserve us an’ save us from all harm.’ She gave a wicked chuckle. ‘If I was married to dat little rat I’d tie his balls around his neck for him that’s for sure an certain.’
Devlin grinned at Mollie’s earthy humour. She had often heard Bridie fighting with her husband, sometimes so loudly that poor Eddie would be forced to go out on the landing and bellow at them to be quiet and give the neighbours a bit of peace.
Gradually Devlin began to settle down a little bit. Religiously once a week Caroline came over, and Maggie too if she could manage it. If the weather was fine they went out and forgot their troubles, if not they stayed in and made pot after pot of tea, chatting endlessly. Devlin’s heart bled for Caro. That she was not happy was obvious and although sometimes she herself would be feeling fed up and depressed she always made an effort to be cheerful for her friends. It was the happiest time of the week for her when they would visit, a time to lay down the burdens of life, a time for fun, a time for friendship.
Meeting her father once a week was another treat that got her out of the flat. For this occasion she would always wear one of her old snazzy outfits. He had no idea that she was living in Ballymun, existing on the unmarried mother’s allowance. Devlin hated to lie but knowing that he would only worry himself sick if he knew the truth, had led him to believe that she was living in a flat in Drumcondra and was working as a doctor’s receptionist. Wednesday, the day she met him for lunch, was her day off. Poor Gerry, he wanted to buy her a car but she wouldn’t let him, although it would have given her such pleasure and made life so much easier. But there was no way she could afford a car on her allowance, so regretfully she declined his offer, gently but firmly. Of Lydia they never spoke, as if by mutual consent, but although time had eased the bitterness for Devlin, the hurt was still there. Gerry adored his granddaughter and spoilt her as much as Devlin would allow, bringing presents each time they met on her ‘day off.’
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